Feminism and gender double standards in TV

[VictoriaOKeefe]

In sitcoms and commercials since about the 1970s they often have the girl or woman be smarter/win over the boy or man.

Another gender double standard on television - witness how Peter Brady was thought to be a "kissing bandit" in the Brady Bunch and was treated by the characters as worse than Hitler - while in the sitcom Modern Family, the little girl Lilly becomes a "kissing bandit" for one episode and the characters in that show think its just adorable!

These things have been touted as "feminist empowerment", but is that really true?

I don't think it's 'feminist empowerment' (whatever that meaningless phrase is getting at). I think it's the same old, same old...not an inversion.

Women are the sensible, nurturing, motherly homemakers...men are spontaneous man-childs. It's still dividing the sexes along gender lines. All the adverts where men are idiots in the home and the woman has to come along and sort it out don't actual favour the women. They are offensive to both sexes by reinforcing the idea that women are knowledgeable about homework/cooking and men are incapable of it (or need a super-simple gadget...'it's so simple, even dad can do it').

I've not seen the shows you refer to about the kissing thing but it sounds like that's the same old bullshit too...men/boys are supposed to be strong and sex-mad thus they are a threat, women are weak and every man would love physical attention from a woman so there's no threat there.

Obviously, I've been extremely sarcastic and flippant but I can't see how the examples you've given are anything but the same old sexist bullshit reinforcing gender-roles.

As far as I'm concerned: NOT feminist approved

I don't know these shows either - but a quick google suggests that age is a factor in these examples more than gender - a 3 year old 'kissing bandit' (not completely sure what that involves) is likely to be cuter than an adolescent boy (again, I don't know exactly how old Peter Brady was supposed to be, but on google it looks about 13/14) which is a bit disturbing.

No idea who's touted these as feminist empowerment - they just sound like dodgy plotlines to me - and given that another google shows that the writing staff/producers/directors are large majority men, I doubt that it was the people making the show thinking it.

TBH I don't even know what Feminist empowerment means - generally it seems to be used when they want to show a naked woman but pretend that she really wants to do it.